


pull the stars to where you are

by snapdragonpop007



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Fluff and Angst, I am ingoring basic astrological functions for the sake of this fic, I know how the sky works I'm not dumb I promise, Love at First Sight, Multi, Temporary Amnesia, but it's for the plot, but it's mostly fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:28:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24512338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snapdragonpop007/pseuds/snapdragonpop007
Summary: The story of how The Moon and The Ocean fell in love is told almost every night, both in words and songs and in the push and pull of the ocean tides themselves.But there is another story about a love that's hardly told, about how The Sun met a boy at the end of the world, and fell in love with a fallen star.
Relationships: La/Tui (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 19
Kudos: 402
Collections: AtLA <10k fics to read, Stuff to read





	pull the stars to where you are

“You watch him often.” Tui said. 

The Moon sat with her brother, the Sun. The two were nestled atop the cliff face, looking down at the ocean and the boy. He was standing just on the edge of the shore, close enough for the ocean to greet him, but never touch. Tui spared glances at her brother, shining brightly in his reds and golds while she glimmered in her silvers and blues.

But even as the sun set and dipped below the horizon, Zuko’s light faded with it.

“Of course I do.” Zuko replied. His hair looked like ink, but his eyes still burned bright with fire. He did not look away from the boy. “He’s out with the sun. Just like everything else. I have to watch him.”

Tui laughed. It was a light and airy sound, like a ringing bell. 

The Ocean rumbled beneath them, kissing the shore with gentle waves and crackling foam as he tried to reach The Moon. The boy yelped and jumped back, and the water retreated. 

“So he is,” Tui smiled. “But he is not the only creature who is out with the sun.” 

Zuko flushed and Tui laughed again, the silver of her hair casting brilliant colors in the dying light of her brother. 

The boy stood by the ocean every night ever since the start of the new year, watching and waiting for the stars, and Zuko watched the boy as he watched the stars—full of wonder and awe and enchantment. This watching had only started because Zuko so very rarely saw anyone as he set. Life was such a rare and strange thing in the southern pole, but here this boy was, and he had become as constant in this arctic beach as the push and pull of Tui and La’s tides. 

“Why don’t you go talk to him?” Tui nudged Zuko’s shoulder with her own, nodding down to the boy when Zuko finally looked at her. He blinked, the pleasant pink color in his cheeks getting darker the longer Tui looked at him. He looked away first, glancing at the setting sun before looking back down at the boy. 

He still stood on the shore, staring at the sun as it dipped below the water. 

“I--” Zuko’s voice cracked. “No. I can’t.” 

Tui smiled softly. She lifted her hands to cup Zuko’s jaw, gently coaxing him into looking back at her. His eyes were so different from her own. Where hers were a gentle milky gray, his were a harsh fiery gold. 

“Once La holds the sun, you aren’t beholden to it’s path until it starts again—and I can walk the stars by myself tonight.” Tui ghosted her thumb over Zuko’s scar, then gently kissed the spot she touched. “Go say hello.” 

As the words left her lips La reached up and plucked the sun from the sky, and Zuko felt the tightness in his chest release. Now was the time for dusk, when neither the sun nor the moon were in the sky, when Zuko shared his light with Tui, when the ocean held balance for just a moment. 

“Go say hello,” Tui repeated it in a whisper and with a soft smile. 

Zuko nodded, kissed her cheek, passed her the vial of his light, then disappeared from her hold. 

Tui’s hands were still outstretched when she looked down at the beach. Her brother stood not too far away from the boy, fingers clenched in his robes. He looked more human--his hair was no longer tied up, falling across his face in sharp lines of ink. His light had left, not to return until the next morning when Tui gave it back, but if Tui looked close enough she could see threads of sunlight woven into the fabric of his robe. 

“It’s been awhile since I’ve seen your brother look so human. He usually hides in the stars at night.” 

“Let him have this, my love.” Tui tucked herself into La’s side, smiling softly and kissing just below his jaw. “He deserves to be happy.” 

La hummed. “How much longer until the moon rises?”

“We have time.” Tui answered. 

\--

The boy didn’t notice Zuko for a while. 

He stared out at the night sky until the stars exploded across the black canvas, vibrating and darting around as they looked for the North Star. The boy let out a deep breath and smiled, but still did not look away from the stars.

“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” the boy asked.

Zuko hummed in agreement, although he was not looking at the stars. 

He had never been this close to the boy before, and now that he was he couldn’t stop staring. 

The boy had blue beads in his hair and shells around his neck. His clothes looked like they had pieces of the night sky sewn into them, they were so dark. They were lined with fur as well, thick enough to keep out the cold of the southern tundra, and when Zuko looked close enough at the boy he could swear there were stars buried in the ice of his eyes.

“But there’s something wrong with them, isn’t there?” The boy turned to look at Zuko. “They seem...different.” 

Zuko was surprised by that. He hadn’t thought any humans would notice the disarray the stars were in. He himself had only noticed the state of the night sky because he spent time hiding in the stars when he wasn’t with Tui. She had noticed as well, of course, but it seemed that no one else had. The stars were well versed in hiding their distress to those they didn’t trust. 

It was easier to spot, the closer you got to the North Pole, but Zuko and Tui were the only ones who traveled through the stars. 

“The North Star disappeared.” Zuko answered. “No one knows where he went.” 

“That’s a shame.” The boy said softly. Then he smiled. “I’m Sokka.” 

Zuko’s heart jumped and fluttered in his chest like a caged bird. “Zuko.” 

Sokka’s smile softened, and the sharp lines of his jaw softened with it. He looked at Zuko for a long time--long enough that Zuko tried to count the freckles splashed across the bridge of Sokka’s nose. 

“Do you live around here?” Sokka asked. He tilted his head, his eyes darting around the beach they stood on before coming back to rest on Zuko. 

“My family does.” Zuko answered. 

It was not entirely true, but it was not false either. This was where Tui and Zuko shared the light of dusk, where Tui rose and Zuko set, where La held both of them in his hands and kept the world in balance. They did these things at the end of the world, where no one could see. Where no one could interrupt the balance. 

“That's nice, to have family so close.” Sokka frowned, his eyes drifting back to the sky. He stared for a long time, and when he finally spoke he sounded lost. “I lived at the North Pole until I came here.”

“You’re a very long way from home.” Zuko mumbled.

Sokka huffed out a laugh. “Yeah, you could say that.” 

Zuko felt so sad then, and he couldn’t even begin to say why. 

“Why did you come here?” Zuko stepped closer to Sokka, seized by a sudden need to know everything about him, to get closer, to count his freckles and look at the stars in his eyes and trace the spots of night sky in his clothing, to remember things he had forgotten. 

Sokka blinked slowly before glancing back at Zuko. He looked confused. 

“I don’t know.” he said softly.

Zuko wanted to ask more, to keep talking to him, but then Sokka was walking away from the water—away from Zuko. “I’m sorry, I have to—I have to get back.”

“Wait—“

“It was nice meeting you Zuko!” Sokka was already halfway up the beach, waving to Zuko before turning around and running off. 

Zuko started to go after him, but he felt a pull back to the ocean. He looked back behind him to see the last of the dark blues and purples of the night sky disappearing to hazy grays. Zuko took a deep breath, clinging to the last of the fading stars as he crossed through the sky to the North.

He hadn’t realized his sister had crossed the sky already. 

Zuko reached the North just as the last of the stars left it, and he could hear a soft crying just as La plucked the moon from the sky.

—

Zuko didn’t go to meet his sister the next night.

He left his colors on the cliff face for Tui, then went to the beach as soon as his path brought him close enough that he could leave the sky. He sat close to the water, his legs crossed, staring out at the sky as the sun crossed over the last bit of the ocean. 

“You’ve only spoken to him for a night, and you are already waiting for him?” La emerged from the ocean, staring down at Zuko before taking a seat next to him. “Goodness, Agni--this boy must really be special.”

“I feel like I know him.” Zuko mumbled, choosing to ignore the use of his proper name. He turned to look at La, who was already looking at him, speaking louder as he addressed The Ocean. “He noticed that the stars are missing Polaris.”

La blinked slowly. His eyes were as vast and deep as the waters that he dwelled in, so dark of a blue that they looked black. Zuko could never look at them for long, and so he looked away as La spoke. “Well, that is something special, isn’t it?” 

“It is.” Zuko frowned and looked back to the sky. “Humans don't notice things like that.”

“No. They don’t.” La said. “Of course, the physical north star is still there--just as the physical sun is still in the sky, and just as the ocean is below us.” 

“So?”

La hummed. “So, you and I are sitting here, are we not?”

Zuko looked back at La, but he had already dripped back into the ocean. 

“You’re here!” someone sat next to Zuko in the place where La had just been, and when Zuko turned to look he felt his heart jump into his throat and pound against his tongue. “I didn’t think you would be back--not that I was expecting you, or anything.”

Sokka flushed, then looked up to the sky. 

The sun had just kissed the horizon, and Zuko could feel the tightness in his chest lessen. 

“I _was_ waiting for you,” Zuko said softly. “I was going to watch the sun set, but I was also waiting for you.” 

Sokka looked back at him, his mouth open and his cheeks darkening. There was something beautiful in the pleasant surprise that spread across Sokka’s face, something almost familiar and comforting, something that Zuko wanted to hold close to his heart.

“I--” Sokka fumbled for words while he searched Zuko’s eyes for a bit of truth. Then his face fell and he tilted his head, and he looked, for a moment, like he recognized Zuko from a time long before last night--from a time long before Zuko was Zuko. “You’re not...you’re not human, are you?” 

Zuko didn’t want to lie, not to him. “No. I’m not.”

Many others would be afraid at that admission, but Sokka was not. He looked like it made sense to him, like something had finally fallen into the spot he had carved for himself at the end of the world.

“Who are you?” Sokka asked, leaning just a little closer.

“Agni.” Zuko reached out and took Sokka’s hands as he said it, squeezing them gently and offering a soft smile, “But I really do prefer Zuko.” 

Sokka’s eyes widened, and Zuko could see stars dancing in them. 

“Shouldn’t you be in the sky right now?” Sokka looked back to the horizon just as La plucked the sun from the sky. Then he looked back to Zuko, holding Zuko’s hands just a bit tighter than what Zuko was holding his. 

Zuko shook his head. “Dusk is the time for La to keep balance. Then he will put the moon in the sky, and Tui will make her way across it.” 

“And what will you do?” Sokka loosened his grip, threading their fingers together. 

“I will wait right here. Then I will cross the stars to the north, and rise again.” Zuko smiled.

“I didn’t know you could walk across the stars.” Sokka said softly. He looked back up at the sky in wonder. There were no stars in the sky yet—the moon wasn’t even in the sky yet, but Sokka’s awe wasn’t any less. Zuko looked to the sky with him. He felt small, looking at it like this. “I wish...I want to go back up there.” 

Zuko did not miss that Sokka said _go back_. He did not miss the faint twinge in his own memory, but he did not say anything. 

“Maybe I can take you up there,” Zuko said instead. 

Sokka looked back at him. His skin looked like gold in the dying light of dusk. “You could?” 

Zuko nodded. 

He was still holding Sokka’s hands, and he didn’t want to let them go. They were cold, a pleasant contrast against Zuko’s own nearly insufferable heat, and it was only then that he noticed Sokka wasn’t wearing gloves. 

Strange, for being in the southern tundra. 

“I—“ Sokka started, then stopped. He frowned, tilted his head, looked back up to the sky, then back to Zuko. “I...need to get there myself.” 

Whatever Zuko has been expecting, it wasn’t that. 

“Not that I don’t appreciate the offer—but it’s...I don’t know.” Sokka trailed off. He looked away from Zuko, taking his hands back and putting them in his lap. Zuko missed the coolness of it immediately. “My friend would say that it’s not the right time.”

Time was a strange thing, even to gods. 

“I understand that, I suppose.” Zuko said. He twisted his fingers in his robes to stop himself from reaching out to take Sokka’s hands back. 

“Watch the moon rise with me? Just until you have to go.” Sokka gave him a smile and scooted closer. Their shoulders brushed together, and then, like a damn had broken, Sokka sunk into Zuko and Zuko sunk into him. “I’d imagine you don’t see if very often.”

Zuko didn't. 

While he often walked with his sister across the stars at night, sharing his light, he was usually already up in the stars when La put the moon in the sky. He hid among them as his light died, waiting for Tui to find him so he could share the last little bit with her in the safety and comfort of the sky.

“Okay.” 

The Sun put his hand in his lap, the boy at the end of the world took hold of it, and the first stars dotted across the sky. 

—

“You didn’t walk with me tonight.”

“Sorry,” Zuko came to a stop next to Tui, taking in a deep breath. 

He had lost track of time again, and while it wasn’t anything like last night, Tui had made it halfway across the sky before Zuko noticed that time had passed. He had untangled himself from Sokka, offered a soft apology, then ran across the stars while Sokka watched him go.

“You like the boy that much.” Tui didn’t ask it. She said it with a little lilt and laugh, like she didn’t mind and more like she found the whole thing amusing. “What’s so special about him?” 

“He wants to go back to the stars.” Zuko said.

The phrase tasted odd on his tongue. There was truth to it, he knew, but it was the kind of truth that shouldn’t have to be a truth--a truth that shouldn’t have to exist at all.

Tui tilted her head. Her hair pooled down her shoulders, catching Zuko’s light as it started to grow again. “How odd.” 

“I think—“ Zuko paused. “La said something to me and I think...I think he might be a fallen star.” 

“It’s possible,” Tui sat on the edge of a glacier as the moon touched the horizon. She held her hand out to Zuko. He took it, gently sitting next to her. “Stars fall all the time. But even so, we cannot help him. Stars must return to the sky on their own, if they are to return at all.”

Her light was leaving quickly, running back to Zuko and warming him while chasing away the chill of the north. 

“I know.” Zuko said it softly—so softly that he himself barely heard it. “But he...Tui, he said he used to live in the North.” 

“You think he’s the North Star?” 

“Maybe?” Zuko hated how it came out as a question.. “No one has seen the North Star in a very long time.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean he is.” Tui spoke evenly. 

“That doesn’t mean he isn’t.” Zuko bit back, looking away from the sinking moon to his sister. He did not know why he felt so certain about this. He had no proof and he wouldn’t have proof until Sokka returned to the sky--if he even returned. Stars took the memory of themselves when they fell, falling away from existence just as they fell from the sky.

Tui blinked slowly. Zuko stared back as long as he could before looking away. 

“Zuko,” Tui said his name so gently, so carefully. 

“I’m sorry,” Zuko leaned forward and let Tui hold him until he had to cross the sky again.

“Ask him, Zuko,” Tui caught him one last time. “You’re remembering something, with or without him back in the sky.” 

\--

Sokka was waiting for Zuko, and when Zuko stepped onto the beach Sokka was looking at him like he knew him. 

“I fell,” Sokka said slowly. “Right here.” 

And then Zuko remembered seeing Sokka up in the stars. He remembered seeing him every morning, in the North, walking with Tui as they both set while Zuko rose. He remembered sitting with Sokka on those nights he didn’t walk with Tui, talking with him, laughing with him, kissing him--

“I was trying to catch up to you,” Sokka’s eyes were dancing with the fragments and dust of the North Star. “But I wasn’t fast enough.”

“I should have caught you--” Zuko stepped forward, taking hold of Sokka’s hands just as Sokka reached out for him. “--I should have--I’m so _sorry_ \--” 

The Sun and The North Star crashed into each other, holding each other close, like they had always been destined to do. Much like Tui and La, The Sun and The North Star circled each other, guiding the other through the sky with their light, always leading each other back to the other. 

“I should have caught you,” Zuko repeated. 

“You caught me eventually.” Sokka said. Then he kissed Zuko, because it had been far too long since he had.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't entirly know where Agni falls into Avatar Lore, but just roll with me on this one
> 
> I may or may not write more of this idk yet


End file.
